After it all
by BallSabre
Summary: A sad little story... Any kind of a summary is spoiling... But I will give you the pairing! Lina x Gourry! Read & Review, please!


A long time ago, an image came to my mind, it was a horribly sad image, and it won't leave me alone. So I'm going to share it with you... To the best of my abilities that is...

If my last story ('Vases') wasn't my style... Than this is something I don't ever want to write again!

If you promise not to hate me because of this, I promise to tell you The Meaning Of Life! (No shitting, it will be posted along with a longer fic...)

And I don't own Slayers... (Which is a good thing, because now I can't make this a reality...) *Goes and hides in a dark corner*

When you read this, try to keep in mind that this is about 100 years after next... Or the novels, which ever you like best...

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A figure in a black dress walked slowly through the silent, little village, an aura of sadness and unbearable pain around her. She had her face covered by a dark veil, but even it couldn't hide the silent tears that ran down her rose-coloured cheeks.

The fragile woman always smiled longingly through her tears as young travellers passed her by, trying to figure out who this pained person was. These travellers usually stopped in the small village's inn and more often than not, the only waitress working there found herself telling the curious travellers this person's story. Which, along the years, had become the village's adopted sad-romance story that lacked a happy ending.

She always told them about a handsome swordsman with legendary skill, meeting with a young girl in the woods and how the girl turned out to be perhaps the most powerful sorceress in the world. She told them that they never parted for long and how the man was driven to protect the woman for the rest of his life.

By then the petite figure in her black dress had disappeared through the busy streets and was heading to an old church on a hill, that overlooked the village. She all but dragged herself through the small graveyard and stopped before a modest gravestone. She knelt before it and brushed it clean with her gloved fingertips, revealing a carving.

"_Gourry Gabriev_

_heir of the swordsman of light_

_loving husband and father"_

The priest of the small church watched from his window as wind picked up on the graveyard and played with the widows chestnut curls, a sudden gust of wind blew the dark veil up revealing a strikingly young and beautiful face, soaked with tears. Her ruby eyes shining brightly as the sun's last rays reflected from her freely running tears. The priest couldn't help but wonder exactly what kind of a god was he worshiping, he couldn't understand how such a pain was allowed to exists. He diverted his eyes as the small figure broke down in violent sobs and fell onto the grave, her gloved hands slipping down the gravestone.

"Why..." Whispered the figure into the wind.

"Why did you have to leave me..."

On days like these, when the pain became too great for her to handle, she often thought about following him to where ever he had went, but was reminded by his voice in the back of her head that her children and grandchildren still needed her.

They had lived their lives to the fullest and even now, while crying on his gravestone, she had only one regret. She had been afraid, afraid of her feelings for him.

"Why did it take so long for us to realize what everyone else saw the very moment they met us?..." She whispered, hoping to hear him answer, but knowing full well he wasn't going to.

She played with her ruby wedding ring, still remembering how the leafs on it used to be green and not golden when she looked at it. Her heart stung, the pain of loss still as sharp as it had been the morning when she had woken up, not finding a warm body next to he, but instead, the cold hands of her husband wrapped tightly and protectively around her.

It had been over ten years... And still, ones a week she had to come to his grave and let herself free, to let out all the bent up feelings inside of her...

A pair of teary eyes watched as the almost girlishly young woman wailed on the grave of his father. Gregory Gabriev wasn't sad because of his father anymore, he had been the first to really come to terms with Gourry's passing away. But seeing his usually, happily smiling mother cry, always made him feel like hitting Ceiphied and kissing Shabranigdu, just to help ease his mothers pain.

He, along with his younger brother and sister, had, unlike so many other people, been lucky enough to witness true and undying love between two people and to their delight, those two persons had been their mother and father. Sure their mother had always hit and insulted their father, calling him jellyfish when he wasn't paying attention.

To Gregory's partial disgust, one night when he was going to the bathroom, he had heard through his mother's silencing spell, only to hear her scream in ecstasy, "jellyfish do it inside!" After that event, he had seen a whole new side to the name 'jellyfish' and hadn't been able to look them into their eyes for a week after it.

That event had also proved exactly how much they really loved each other.

But Gregory was sure that everyone would agree with him, when he said he could have lived without seeing the down side of such a powerful feeling.

The sun had already set behind the distant mountains, leaving the whole village in an almost gloomy darkness. The crying had ceased a few moments ago and all that was left was the old woman in a young body, sleeping on her husband's grave. Gregory walked from the shadows and started for the graveyard, but was intercepted by the priest who had come out to check that the woman was alright.

"Mrs Gabriev really did love her husband, didn't she..." The priest stated, rather than asked.

"Yeah, she does..." Gregory answered, stretching out the word 'does'. "All she needs is for Gourry to whisper into her ear 'Lina...', but we all know that will never happen again in this life time..." He added sadly, almost choking on his words.

"How are the rest of you handling it?" The priest asked silently.

"...We're taking it a lot better than mom is, of course we are all still sad, but we have our own families now... I think that from the rest of us, it was their grandchildren, our children, that took it the hardest... They were still young when it happened..." He admitted silently, not wanting to disturb his mother.

Gregory walked to his mother, who still, after all these years, looked younger than him. He picked her up from the quickly cooling ground and hugged her close, not wanting to let go, to just be there and comfort her.

"Has anyone told you that you look just like your father?..." The priest asked, now smiling slightly.

Indeed, Gregory was the spitting image of his father, he even favored blue in his clothing. The only thing that clearly set them apart, was the fact that he had short hair, with a reddish touch to its blond color.

Gregory smiled kindly to the priest as he walked back into the church, seeing that everything was fine ones again.

The tall man walked through the quiet streets, his eyes not leaving his mother for a second. He had promised to his father to look after her after he died, Gregory hadn't thought about it much until the reality of his passing had hit the family. Not that he regretted promising it, he just hadn't thought it possible for the man he respected the most to just die so suddenly.

Finally he reached a larger than average store/house with a sine hanging above the door that said, 'Sword and Sorcery'. He had to admit, it was a catchy name. He opened the door and walked inside, carefully, not to make sound, he locked the door behind him.

Gregory silently walked up the stairs and entered his parents room. He carefully tugged his mother into the large bed and left the room just as silently.

He and his wife had taken it upon themselves to continue the family business and were living along with their children in the same house with his mother. Although he had a distant feeling that he was going to pass on before his mother did...

He entered his own room, he quickly shed his clothing and snuggled beside his wife, hugging her as close as possible.

"Again huh?" She asked sleepily, flashing a smile at him.

"Yeah... I just hope she can handle it when her children die from age before her..." He responded and with that, they were both fast asleep.

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So? What do you think? Should I go and shoot myself for writing something like this?

And before you can ask, Gregory is the name of Lina's and Gourry's first son... And about the other siblings... No it wasn't a Gourry-look-a-like-party, just Gregory... The other sibling lives in Saillune and the other lives in Zephilia (dunno which in which)...

About the ring... It will be explained in another fic that I have been writing. (No, this is not the ending for it...) On the simplest level the leafs are green when her husband is alive and wearing it...

Most of you might say that; "Lina wouldn't act like that!" But keep in mind that Gourry is Dead! As in dead and buried! That is a whole lot different from being kidnapped! And by this time they have been together for about ninety years not a few years... I think it isn't that far from the possible truth...

Oh, and did you guess what that sad image in my head was? It was, Lina in a black dress crying on Gourry's grave... I don't know why, but I get the feeling that I got the idea from Naruto?!?!


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